William Edmund Ironside Ironside, 1st Baron

Ironside, William Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron, 1880–1959, British general. After serving with distinction in the South African War and World War I, he was chosen (1918) to command the Allied forces at Archangel to aid Aleksandr Kolchak in fighting the Bolsheviks. After service in the Middle East, he became commandant of the staff college at Camberley. Other commands followed, including several years in India, and in 1938 Ironside became governor of Gibraltar. On the outbreak of World War II, he was recalled to England to be chief of the imperial general staff. In 1940 he was briefly chief of the home forces in England. He was made a field marshal in 1940 and created baron in 1941.